NTV7 The Breakfast Show
An interview with Simon Faure-Field, CEO of Equal Strategy on sensory branding and customer experience using music styling and fragrances - Aroma Scent Marketing
December 2007
Simon Faure-Field speaks to Elaine Daly and Hansen Lee how Equal Strategy sensory branding services deliver fragrance, music styling to OCBC, Naumi Hotel, Marriott, Shangri-La and Genting.
Hansen:
We are going to move on to talk about something else. Something very interesting.
Elaine:
Our studio is smelling absolutely fantastic today.
Hansen:
My senses are just buzzing right now.
Elaine:
I feel I feel feel.
Hansen:
Feel Feel Ok. Let's welcome our guest Simon A. Faure Field. He is the CEO of Equal Strategy. Welcome to the show.
Hansen:
Welcome good morning.
Simon:
Good morning.
Elaine:
It's good to have you here so bright & early. Are you a morning person?
Simon:
Can be.
Elaine:
All right.
Hansen:
You've already, you know, woken us up tremendously because of the overwhelming smell when you open your briefcase.
Elaine:
You've spiked it, I call it. So please tell us what this whole sensory branding, sensory selling thing all about
Simon:
So basically what we are doing, we are helping companies use additional senses. A Sense of smell and a sense of sound in more sort of scientific and systematic way to improve customer experience
Elaine:
Ok
Simon:
And what we have is a range of different music, different fragrances and we have companies used these to create enhanced experience, but also we can do it to time, to fit in the branding of that company.
Elaine:
So when you say companies, you are talking what?.. Hotels and shopping malls and we are not talking financial institutions and stuff are we?
Simon:
We are.
Hansen:
We are?
Simon:
This rhymes across the board because I think you'll find all industries go back and look at the hospitality industry as a source of ideas for service.
Elaine:
Ok
Simon:
So banks now; even though banks are in the financial industry they are in retail banking.
Elaine:
Yes
Simon:
... and as markets become more developed and people become exposed to various different markets and different things happening in these markets and people have greater spending ability. People make decisions now so, more heavily upon how they feel about particular brand, as opposed to: do I want this? Or do I need this? All right. And it's reached to the point where 80% of our decisions are actually based upon what we smell.
Elaine:
Oh Ok! Oh really?!
Simon:
If you enter in a restaurant and it didn't smell nice. Would you want to stay there?
Hansen:
Most probably not.
Elaine:
So, how do you put these scents in there and how you conceptualize which scent goes to which store or which company?
Simon:
Okay well basically we look at it from the fragrance angle and couple different ways we want to address it. So if you got to Genting casino on the top of the mountain. In the casino what they've actually found in a study in America was that if people can be playing in a smoking room but they can't smell the smoke, player attention can increase by 30 - 40%.
Hansen:
Wow that's a lot.
Elaine:
So, what smell eliminates the smoke smell?
Simon:
So, we are actually diffusing a fragrance in a project we are working on at the moment and our objective there is to remove the smell of smoke. And fragrances can be blended with a feature call odourfoyl, which actually changes the molecular structure of malodors. Malodors can be tobacco, it can be body odors such as in gyms or it can be residual cooking smells. We can use fragrancing with odourfoyl to get rid of horrible smells. But also we can also use fragrance to create a more pleasant environment and what we don't want to forget here, is the sense of smell is the most powerful scent. And is the only sense that is directly connected to the brain center of the memory and emotions. So that is why we can smell something and memories can come rushing back.
Elaine:
That's very true. I mean you know the talcum powder we used as kids or something, you just have a whiff of it and it brings back a lot of memories. That's true.
Simon:
So, we can look at it from that side, using the fragrance there, that's going to become very brand orientated. But also if we wanted to stimulate customer behavior. So what does this mean? Think of baby milk powder, it's fragranced with vanilla. Vanilla is what we call a low arousal fragrance; it has a calming effect, that's why it is in baby milk powder intentionally.
Hansen:
Aha... aa!
Simon:
So, then what we actually do when we're working with clients and we are trying to select the right sort of fragrance for them there are a lot of different aspects we need to consider. In Singapore, a few months ago a luxury boutique hotel opened, which is Singapore's first luxury boutique hotel, and it had a very modern stylish minimalist design and what we wanted to do- it had a lots of glass, lots of chrome, lots of tiles. So, we wanted to use a fragrance that was going to be very refreshing and clean and there, we're actually using a use ginger and lime fragrance.
Elaine:
Hmm... sounds fresh, hmm very nice.
Simon:
And then music we're using in the lobby; this hotel is called Hotel Naumi or Naumi Hotel.
Elaine:
Very zen kind of music is it?
Simon:
It's very laid back, it's very sophisticated.
Elaine:
Very type of Café Delmar kind of feel to it?
Simon:
But not so commercial as Café Delmar.
Elaine:
Oh right! And how do you create this music?
Simon:
So, we have a access of 5 million different licensed tracks and these come from all the different major labels and also have a selection from a different library that isn't available to the public.
Elaine:
Ah!
Simon:
So, whether clients are looking for something that's going to be suitable for their target audience .For example, if you had a cloth store that's catering for 16 to 18 years old you would want Britney Spears
Hansen:
Yeah
Elaine:
Of course, ok.
Simon:
if you are a private bank. If you went to OCBC premier banking in Malaysia. So, all the recently built branches over the last 2 years, when you go to premier banking you will find the design is very sophisticated, very stylish. So we use classical and jazz and it's not your main stream classical and jazz it a very sort of…Select selection. When you enter that branch it doesn't just look stylish, it actually sounds it. It's amazing how this can actually influence and persuade people as to how they behave.
Elaine:
Right
Hansen:
Right
Simon:
There is one study carried out by a wine shop. They wanted to track the way music influence behavior and sales and they wanted to compare top 40 to playing classical music and they found that running these different music profiles over a couple of months, the volume of wine sold didn't vary, but when people actually heard classical music they selected more expensive wines than when top forty was playing.
Elaine:
Feeling more cultured! It all comes into play right.
Simon:
Yes
Elaine:
Ok, what are the fragrances used in the more popular places in the world; I mean you know...buildings or..
Simon:
Shangri-La?
Elaine:
Ya! Probably.
Simon:
If you travelling to any Shangri La business hotels in Asia you will actually smell and experience Shangri-La's signature fragrance, it's exclusive to them.
Hansen:
This is a customized fragrance, exclusive for Shangri-La, so you will not smell this anywhere else but Shangri-La.
Elaine:
Oh! I am in Shangri-la!
Simon:
And then we are involved in a project at the moment with the Marriott group. So Marriott also owns renaissance. If you go to Renaissance in Kuala Lumpur. You will actually smell this one.
Elaine:
So, how do you put these fragrances in these places are they burnt, are they oils?
Simon:
No. I think when you look at the traditional way of diffusing fragrances, people used the aromatherapy burners ok, and the problem is that you have a naked flame and someone needs to keep topping that up, so you got safety issues, plus you got labor issues because someone needs to keep attending to them. Then the other option we have seen on the market is the "squirt squirt "units, that I call them. And they tend to...
Elaine:
And they tend to scare me sometimes.
Hansen:
... "ssshrrr"
Simon:
... you get those "ptch ptch " and basically what happens is that you have a squirt of a fragrance that is a very economical fragrance and it is only made of about two or four different raw ingredients. And the fragrance level is very strong for about five minutes or 2 minutes.
Elaine:
That's right and then it evaporates.
Simon:
... and then you have nothing for about another 20 to 30 minutes until the next "ptch ptch"…..
Elaine:
Okay
Hansen:
So, how do you do it?
Simon:
How I do it? Very different. We actually have a system that doesn't use little bottles like this but bottles bigger about this big. This is actually diffused through the air-conditioning system.
Hansen:
Ah Okay. Air conditioning system, most efficient way.
Simon:
So, what actually happens is, we channel compressed air from a pump into the bottle of fragrance, the fragrance vaporizes and turns into a dry vapor that is actually naked to the eye and then that is connected through a tube to the air-conditioning supply duct to the target area.
Hansen:
Okay
Simon:
So, what happens, it then mixes with all the treated chilled air and then that's fed to the target area and so you end up to a very even fragrance level..
Elaine:
Okay
Simon:
... that's consistent but not for 5 minutes not for a hour but literally..
Hansen:
For all the time
Simon:
For month after month after month after month.
Hansen:
Oh excellent. All right you know what; we are unfortunately actually running out of time Simon but thank you on filling us on sensory marketing.
Elaine:
The next time I'll walk in Shangri-La, I'll get the smell!
Hansen:
We will pay attention to more things now, now that we know. Thank you very much.
Elaine:
Thank you.
Simon:
Thank you.
